Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated that the several arrests made based on immigration violations in the Northeast this morning were not related to an ongoing threat. Holder said the arrests were made in relation to information gleaned from the interrogation of Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested for plotting to set off a bomb in Times Square.
Holder also emphasized the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in trying suspected terrorists:
As a counterterrorism tool, the criminal justice system has proven its great strength in both incapacitating terrorists and gathering valuable intelligence. The criminal justice system contains powerful incentives to induce pleas that yield long sentences and gain intelligence that can be used in the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. In 2009, there were more defendants charged with terrorism violations in federal court than in any year since 2001.
The Bush administration operated for eight years with a default policy of dealing with domestic terror arrests in federal courts, but Republicans are likely to cite this very statistic as evidence of a divergence in policy. And obviously, there's something disconcerting about what Holder's saying -- the fact that the U.S. has made more terror arrests in 2009 than any year since 2001 suggests the threat of terrorism is increasing, not decreasing.
-- A. Serwer
